What's Wrong With Polygamy

Personally, I'm in favor of marriage. The public declaration of fealty steers the focus of any marital problems onto resolution rather than dissolution. However, I don't think the question should be, "Should gay couples be allowed to marry?". It should be, "Why is the government involved, AT ALL, in how people wish to structure their households?".

We should be relying on government for assistance in enforcing contracts. But how these contracts are structured should be entirely up to the people involved. This, of course, includes people who wish to structure their households around participation by more than two individuals.

I guess there needs to be a set of default contracts (to protect children and establish ownership of chattels, etc.) which are deemed to be in effect when people share a household; but, other than that, the government should have no role.

I know that polygamy facilitates some injustices that never occur in "traditional" marriages <joke>, but is polygamy sufficiently evil by its nature to require the government to ban it?

Replies to This Discussion

At what point did I disparage anyone who was monogamous by choice? I insulted stupid remarks, but I never said anything about monogamy-by-choice one way or the other.

Not only are there communities with both men and women being free to choose their own partners, those communities number in the tens of thousands of people and have existed for several decades ... and the numbers are growing. This is not some insulated religious cult, these are regular people who have found non-monogamy the same way that people always have, for the entire history of humans, only a few decades ago someone put a name to it and a couple years later, someone built a listserve for it so we could find each other.

There is nothing in what I said that indicated or implied a lack of individual stupidity within the poly community - we are, after all, humans. But there simply is none of this treating-mates-as-resources bullshit because there is no mandate from on high that gives status to people for the number of mates they have, thereby reducing the other half of that relationship to property. "Mates are a resource" when you look at groups who treat them as resources. In groups who do not, such as the poly community, they are not.

scare quotes? That wasn't want I was trying to communicate so you shouldn't address it as such.

If you're already part of a poly community then maybe you should sit back, listen and try to share what you know without being hostile to every single point someone brings up. If you don't agree with with me in terms of what problems I see then why don't you share with us the problems you've found since the question is "What's Wrong With Polygamy"

For you to assume I see females as interchangeable if very offensive. Please refrain from projecting that position on to others unless they state it.

I probably should have confided that I'm in a three way relationship. I'm not even sure I can call it a relationship considering these two females live together as partners and I'm offered to join in sexual relations at their call. Even though we all are good friends and socially go out for social engagements I find myself more attracted to one over the other and I perceive the other as being more attracted to me (forming a complete circuit /jk). Either way, I love them both but I'm fearful someone will get hurt (including myself) and the last thing I want to do is hurt anyone.

I am hostile to insults. You are the one who has not been sitting back or paying attention, because I *do* share what I know without being hostile, when the questioner asks questions, not insults me or the poly community, and saying "this 'poly community'" with scare quotes, implying the dubiousness of my statement that the poly community does, in fact, exist, and does, in fact, exist without that specific problem of "surplus males" is insulting. Just as it would be insulting for someone to say "I find it hard to believe these 'poly communities' are not void of problems." if you had said "the atheist community simply does not have the problem of god".

I do not assume you see females as interchangeable, you said you did: "I could be attracted to more then one female and I would naturally prefer one over the other and then the dynamic begins". You said, explicitly, that you could be attracted to more than one, but would then prefer one over the other. You used generic terms "females" rather than specifying that you happened to currently find two specific women attractive but you like one more than the other.

I have no ideal what you're talking about when you say "surplus males" so I can only assume you're projecting some sort of composite argument on to me.

Finding what I say insulting is not the same as your intent to insult.

If you don't assume I see females as interchangeable then refrain from using that wording especially if I didn't use it. If I tell you you're wrong about my intent but you still see it as such then my lack of proper communication is a factor and it would be silly for you to argue against my intent if I deny your interpretation.

I've never in my life heard the term "scare quotes" so I'm sorry if you find that offensive. I really can't help it if you continue to be insulted if I continue to use it.

Please stop being insulting and hostile.I'm new and I've just started reading post on ThinkAtheist a total of 3 days ago and it's starting to alarm me with the amount of egg shells I seem to be stepping on.

If you seem to be stepping on a lot of egg shells, then the problem is with you and either your failure to communicate well or you have some offensive ideas that you seem to be clueless about.

The "surplus males" comment was in direct reply to someone else who used that phrase. You commented on my response to that comment. If you don't know anything about the topic being discussed, perhaps you should refrain from adding your two cents in further discussions.

Since you don't care that you have been notified that a particular convention is insulting and you are now deliberately choosing to use that convention in spite of your new education on the subject, I really can't help it if you continue to be insulted if I continue to be hostile to you for your deliberate insults.

One of the meanings of scare quotes is to convey a neutral attitude, it doesn't have to be an onslaught or attack to that which you are obviously very sensitive about. I still feel you railroaded me with hostility with your first comment because of your hare trigger sensitivity all the while using the negative definition of scare quotes as an excuse. You can help it if you continue to perceive something as negative even though you've been told otherwise.

I think that by any rational examination of the monogamy community you'll find a void of problems. Rampant cheating, divorce is running about 50% (Although, I think that's probably a solution to problems rather than a problem in itself. the problem is suggesting that people need to be married, marry in a hurry, make poor choices, et. al.) Religiously mandated subjugation of women. The list of problems with monogamous marriage is equally long.

Simply suggesting that an alternate form of marriage is so much more problematic seems to be ignoring the issue that social and mating contracts are fraught with emotion regardless of the number of partners.

Yes, that is exactly my point. Address the actual problem of abuse, subjugation of women, indoctrination, etc., etc., and the number of people in the relationship is irrelevant. Whether it's a family of 2 adults of 20 - take care of the problems because the structure isn't the problem, as monogamy certainly hasn't eradicated all those problems. Prosecution of law-breakers and giving women more-equal power is what did it (or, rather, is currently closing the gap).

(although I don't think you mean to say "a void of problems", since that would actually be a complete absence of problems)

I agree with Joreth. For example, polygamy is illegal in the United States and there are 5 homicides per 100,000 people. In comparison here are the homicide rates per 100,000 people in some countries where polygamy is recognized under civil law:

Afghanistan: 3.4

Algeria: 0.64

Bahrain: 0.80

Bangladesh: 2.6

Egypt: 0.80

United Arab Emirates: 0.92

Kuwait: 1.4

Qatar: 1.4

That is just a sampling. Based on the above the argument that in societies where polygamy is recognized that there are more violent crimes just doesn't hold water.